Capping off an exciting Speed Week that began with Kevin Harvick's win of the Budweiser Shootout, this year's Daytona 500 (Sunday, February 15th) will be anything but routine, dull or boring.

With no significant changes to the venue in the off-season, the Daytona track is a restrictor plate tri-oval track of 2.5 miles with 31 degrees banking in the corners and 3 degrees banking on the straightaways, basically nothing spectacular in those details when compared to the likes of Bristol. However, plate racing creates its own controversies and its own style of racing. Essentially, the restrictor plate creates cluster racing that can often set up incredible instances of crashes; thus the controversies surrounding the plate racing concept with strong opinions on both sides of the argument, including some of the drivers. You will find several drivers performing consistently better (or worse) on the restrictor plate tracks, a point that does not go unnoticed. Daytona is one of only two plate tracks, Talledega being the other.

While plate racing was instituted to be a safeguard, it not only has become a hazard in some people's opinion, it is now an excitement factor in the Daytona 500 this year: with slightly over half of the driver field affected by new team assignments, new teammates, new car models and the presence of a new class of rookies, 2009 at Daytona is going to be one exciting show to watch!